Advantage South West: 2006 Gold Award winner
About Advantage South West
The Advantage South West partnership is a group of four West Country housing associations: Devon and Cornwall Housing, North Devon Homes, Ocean Housing and South Somerset Homes.
To meet their development needs, two off-site manufacturing partners, Framehomes UK and Advance Panel Systems, have each built automated manufacturing plants. Formal supply chain partnerships are enshrined in contract between Advantage South West and the two companies and further work is now underway to extend this.
The award-winning project
Tenants were members of the consortium that designed 26 house types, working with consultant architects, engineers, manufacturers and contractors in a team brought together by Advantage South West.
The new standard home types are based on a narrow, medium and wide-fronted standard template, each of them plan accredited by the Housing Corporation. Standardisation has cut costs by reducing manufacturing and housing association overheads.
Advantage South West has created a Design and Innovation Group (DIG) to review completed schemes and promote further innovation. DIG is supported by a tenant working group which carries out liveability audits, meets occupants and feeds back recommendations for improvements.
The standardised house types offer an innovative approach to procurement, says Advantage South West, producing quality homes, full electrical and plumbing layouts, whole lifetime costings, reduced CO2 emissions, fixed price guarantees from the manufacturers and guaranteed delivery of design-efficient precision-engineered timber-framed housing. All houses exceed SDS mortgage requirements, and a number of completed projects have achieved zero defects.
What the judges said
Judges were impressed by the significant reduction in cost per square metre from traditional timber frame construction and the cut in construction time from 26 to 12 weeks.
They also applauded the partnership approach. “The four associations that make up Advantage South West have been the driver of the project,” they said, “but it could not have been achieved without the vision and support of the manufacturers. Early involvement of manufacturers, architects and tenants from the four housing associations in the Design Innovation Group is another example of partnership in practice.”
The experts’ view
“The results are impressive,” said the experts. “Modern methods of construction techniques have reduced construction time and costs and produce a quality product that embraces modern technology.”
The mandatory use of standard components had forced designers to adapt and has resulted in proper collaboration with the supply chain. “Further developments driven by the suppliers will result in more off-site working.”
Further information
Visit Advantage South West's website for further information about the partnership
